


Much Better

by mustachio



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cuddles, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M, good boyfriends, team cecearlos 2014, threatening strexcorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1369357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustachio/pseuds/mustachio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a hard day, it's nice to be able to cuddle with your boyfriends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Much Better

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I wasn't going to post it here, but then that started to annoy me so I changed my mind and posted it anyway. For an anon that requested it on the Team Cecearlos blog.

There are times when Cecil wishes he’d chosen another profession.

There are times when Cecil wishes he’d never quit the Boy scouts and had instead elected to follow Earl’s lead and became a Scoutmaster. Most times, his wishes aren’t quite so drastic. Most times he simply wishes he’d chosen a different form of journalism – perhaps written instead of broadcast. But no, no he hadn’t done that. Cecil had chosen to become a radio host.

Or rather, he simply chose not to fight against the destiny which the City Council so kindly prophesied for him when he was only a child. Not that he even remembers much about that.

Either way, Cecil is a radio host and his radio station is now under the control of StrexCorp Synernists Incorporated. Either way, Cecil is a radio host and his new manager and program director have threatened him in every possible way, even acting on those threats multiple times in the year and a half they’ve been in Night Vale.

Needless to say, this does not make for a very happy radio host.

He can fake a smile, most days. He can fake it pretty well, if he does say so himself. Some days the stress of having to fake it is too much. Sometimes a smile is hard to fake, no matter what the Strex management says.

Cecil walks through the door and isn’t surprised to hear the vague whirring sound that always indicates Carlos is in his homemade lab in the basement or the TV coming from the living room meaning that Earl has finished any extra work he had to take home for the day. Cecil is always the last one home. It makes sense since he’s always the last one to leave, getting ready to make his exit when Earl and Carlos are coming home for their breaks.

Usually Cecil likes coming home to a full house. It’s so much better than being alone. Cecil has been alone for most of his life as far as he can remember. He usually loves the reminders that he doesn’t have to be alone any more. He lives in a house with two boyfriends who love him as much as they love each other and, really, what could be better than that?

Today anything could be better than that.

The sounds coming from the basement remind him too much of the electrical equipment at the station, puts him on edge even in the one place he should feel most comfortable. Whatever Earl is watching sounds awful and not like something Cecil could ever find interesting, even if Earl were to put his hypnosis skills to use. It annoys Cecil in a way it might not typically annoy him and Cecil slams the door shut behind him, only half feeling guilty when he thinks of how much Earl hates it when people slam doors.

Cecil is already dragging himself up the stairs when the TV is muted. He’s too exhausted for human interaction. Right now all Cecil wants is to be left alone. He can say hello to Earl and Carlos when they come up for bed.

If Carlos even goes to bed tonight, he thinks bitterly. For the past two weeks Carlos has been coming to bed later and later, too absorbed by whatever scientific thing he’s working on down there to pay his boyfriends any attention at all. It’s something Earl can tolerate better than Cecil can, but then, Earl has only been dealing with it for one year. Cecil has been dealing with it for two. 

Nights like these make it feel like it’s been two too many.

“Cee?”

Earl pokes his head around the wall separating the stairs from the living room, but Cecil pays him no mind, choosing to continue up to the bedroom without so much as a glance in Earl’s direction.

The bed is too cold. Cecil flings himself on top of it, landing face first into a pile of unmade sheets and blankets and pillows. It should be comfortable, instead it’s too cold. It’s too cold and too big and makes Cecil feel too alone.

It’s strange to feel too alone when all you want is to be left alone.

There’s a light knock on the open doorway, but Earl doesn’t wait for Cecil to respond before he’s kneeling at the side of the bed, one hand rubbing gentle circles on Cecil’s back.

“Cee, are you okay? Did something happen at work?” It’s a stupid question and they both know it. Cecil had been making passive aggressive remarks about Strex all night and there’s no way they went unpunished. His remarks never go unpunished anymore. It doesn’t stop him from making them. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Cecil turns his head, fully meaning to glare at Earl, but his eyes refuse to narrow themselves and instead Cecil finds himself blinking rapidly to fight off tears. He curls his hands into fists in the sheets; grip so strong he nearly breaks the skin of his palms through the fabric.

“I want things to go back to normal. I want to be able say whatever I want to say so long as it’s municipally approved, I want to read sponsor messages from someone other than StrexCorp, and I want to talk about you and Carlos without risking you getting hurt. I want StrexCorp to leave Night Vale forever.”

Earl chooses not to mention the fact that very often Cecil talked about things when they weren’t municipally approved and he never talked about Earl before StrexCorp came along. It’s a petty complaint and not one that needs to be given voice right now.

“I know, Cee, I know.” Earl nudges Cecil softly until he scoots. “Move over, I want to get on the bed, too.”

For his part, Cecil chooses not to point out the fact that there’s a whole other side of the bed that he isn’t laying on if Earl wants to get on; he doesn’t need to be in Cecil’s spot. Instead, Cecil moves over to make enough room for Earl to climb in next to him. Earl wraps his arms tightly around Cecil and it’s wonderful and comforting and not enough. The spot on the other side of Cecil is still too empty and he can’t help the wave of bitterness that washes over him when he, again, thinks of Carlos down there in that basement busying himself with science instead of Cecil.

It’s not that Cecil doesn’t understand being passionate about a job—Cecil understands that perfectly well. It’s just that Cecil is feeling awful and he wants to be selfish and have Carlos all to himself and is that really so much to ask? It must be because Cecil doesn’t make any move to ask it of Carlos at all and feels guilty entertaining thoughts of doing so.

“They will pay for everything they’ve done. They will pay for hurting Khoshekh. They will pay for threatening Carlos. They will pay for closing the White Sand Ice Cream Shop. They will pay for ridding the station of our proper management.” Cecil’s voice goes dark and threatening and even after a lifetime of living in Night Vale, Earl thinks it might be the most frightening thing he’s ever heard. Cecil’s hand curls into Earl’s shirt, wrinkling the once pristine fabric of his uniform. His hand trembles with barely contained rage. “I want them _gone_.”

Earl isn’t sure how to respond to that. He agrees and feels the same way, but saying so won’t make Cecil feel any better. So Earl just holds Cecil a little tighter, rubbing what he hopes are calming circles on Cecil’s back once again. Cecil’s breath has gone shaky, Earl can feel spots on his shirt turning wet where Cecil’s eyes are, and Earl feels absolutely awful. There’s really nothing he can do for Cecil aside from hold him and soothe him after a hard day, but he wants to do more. He wants to be able to come up with a fool proof plan to get StrexCorp out of Night Vale, but as skilled as Earl is at performing insurrections and everything else a good Boy Scout should know, there’s not much he can do when StrexCorp has already wormed their way so far into Night Vale. It’ll probably take months of planning to figure out a good way to beat them that won’t have to many adverse effects on Night Vale itself.

“I’m afraid, Earl.” And hearing Cecil say that is quite possibly the most terrifying thing in the world. Cecil has seen a lot of things and none of them have ever brought him to this point. “They know everything I’ve ever said about Carlos. They’ve listened to every show since Carlos got here.”

From the corner of his eye, Earl can see Carlos appear in the door way. The look on his face is uncertain—no, not uncertain. Concerned. The look on Carlos’s face is concerned. He remains where he is, just listening without approaching for now. Earl doesn’t do anything to let Cecil know Carlos is listening.

“What do you mean they’ve been listening? How do you know?”

“Lauren said Carlos has teeth like a military cemetery.”

The phrase sounds familiar and it only takes a moment for Earl to recall when he heard it. The night Carlos arrived in Night Vale. Earl had been so upset—angry, even—when Cecil originally said it. He’d been talking about how perfect and beautiful and great Carlos was and Earl hadn’t known Carlos then. He hadn’t known Carlos at that point and he’d hated him. Earl had been so jealous that he’d hated Carlos for taking so much of Cecil’s attention just by existing. It’s hard to continue looking in Carlos’s direction with that memory coming to the surface. 

He loves Carlos the same way he loves Cecil now and thinking of his initial reaction to Carlos is embarrassing. His whole initial reaction to Carlos’s existence in Night Vale is embarrassing. Earl looks to Carlos again. He still looks concerned, but there’s a touch of distant anger to his expression, too, like he wants to be completely angry, but the appropriate target isn’t present.

“Oh.” Comes Earl’s awful reply. What else can he say? It’s too late to stop them from listening. There’s nothing Earl can say that would make Cecil feel better about that.

“They know everything I have ever said about Carlos. They know things they should not know—things that could be used to get to him. It’s my fault they know them and it will be my fault when Carlos gets hurt.”

Cecil’s voice shakes in the worst way. Earl has never heard him sound so afraid. He half prefers the threatening tone he’d taken before, or the sadness that came to Cecil’s voice when he explained what happened the night Carlos finally returned his affections. Honestly, Earl would take anything so long as it isn’t this honest to god fear that’s usually so uncharacteristic of Cecil.

Earl opens his mouth to respond, but before any words can make it out of his mouth, Carlos cuts in and makes his presence known.

“Cecil, it will not be your fault if they come after me. Unless you put them up to it, the fault will be entirely with them.”

The bed dips under Carlos’s weight and Earl opens his arms to let Carlos into the hug.

“But—“

“No buts, Cecil.”

Carlos presses a kiss to the back of Cecil’s neck and Cecil shifts so that he’s lying on his back to get a better look at the both of them instead of only being able to see one. Earl and Carlos’s arms rest across Cecil’s stomach, fingers laced together just over Cecil’s belly button.

“Carlos…” Cecil swallows, still trying to fight back tears. “You almost died once before.” Cecil pauses again to take a deep breath. Nearly two years later and it’s still difficult for Cecil to talk what happened when Carlos jumped into the tiny city. Earl is glad he wasn’t there for that. “I don’t think I will be able to stand it if it happens again.” A few tears manage to escape now and Carlos kisses them off of Cecil’s cheek. Earl’s hand tightens around Carlos’s. “I hate it when you come to bed late because you’re working on science; I couldn’t handle it if you never came back.”

“That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.” Earl interjects, voice steady and sure. The look he gives them makes Carlos’s heart speed up and calms Cecil at least slightly. Carlos doesn’t think he’s ever had anyone look so determined to protect him. It’s exciting and overwhelming at the same time. “I won’t let it happen to either of you.”

“And,” Carlos begins, releasing Earl’s hand for a brief moment to hand Cecil a remote that was in his lab coat pocket before entwining their fingers once again. “I’m not going to let them get to me without a fight.”

Cecil looks at the remote with curiosity, turning it in his hands to try and determine what it’s a remote for.

“That’s what I’ve been working on these past few days—“

“Weeks.” Cecil interrupts, not bothering to hide his lingering bitterness over Carlos’s late hours.

“Right, weeks.” Carlos amends, a blush rising to his cheeks, making dark skin even darker. “It’s a remote to what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. It took me a while to get the right materials and to figure out how to put it all together, but I managed to finish it. You remember that StrexPet that attacked you and Khoshekh a few months ago?”

Cecil nods, silent. How could he forget about that? 

Earl looks on with vague curiosity. He heard about the StrexPet and saw Khoshekh’s scars, but all that happened months before he was returned to corporeality.

“Well, I decided to make a pet of my own. Or, well, of your own. I made it for you. I haven’t given it a name yet. I thought that was something you would want to do. Anyway, I made it so that it could do whatever you want it to in order to get back at StrexCorp.” Carlos points to one of the buttons in the middle of the remote. “This button is for fire, this is for knives…” Carlos continues to point at various buttons, listing off each of the different functions as he goes. “So you can give the pet to them, but keep the remote, and pay them back for everything they’ve done and plan to do.”

Once upon a time, the behavior of Night Vale citizens terrified Carlos. The immediate jump to violence when people disagreed with something was something that very nearly sent Carlos packing. Apparently, that is no longer the case.

Carlos is still explaining everything the pet can do when Earl starts giggling. Carlos stops explaining and once again begins blushing, not understanding why any of what he’s saying would be funny; Cecil smiles, fully understanding the reason behind Earl’s giggles.

“What?” Carlos frowns, embarrassment mixing with fear that he managed to say or do the wrong thing.

“Nothing. Only that you’ve adjusted to Night Vale well these past three years, dear Carlos.” Cecil responds, Earl still giggling too much to form a coherent response.

“And that’s funny?” 

It’s not hard to hear that Carlos has clearly taken some offense to Earl’s laughter, so Earl does what he can to calm down so that he can give Carlos an explanation.

“It’s not really that it’s funny. It’s more adorable than anything. I’m sorry I laughed. I didn’t mean to offend you. I like that you’ve gotten used to how things work around here.”

Carlos is silent for a moment. He starts to pull his hand away from Earl’s, but decides against it in the next moment, opting for just continuing to pout, instead.

“I love you.” Earl offers. Carlos sighs and leans over Cecil to press a kiss to Earl’s mouth and Earl eagerly returns it.

When they pull away Cecil is the one pouting , arms crossed over his chest, the corners of his mouth twitching as he fights to keep the pout in place when all he really wants to do is smile.

“I made one for each of us. I’m planning on teaching the other scientists how to make them so everyone in town can have one—except, you know, the people from StrexCorp.”

“You won’t have to work late again to make them, will you?” Cecil wants the town to be protected, of course, but the thought of Carlos working late again makes his chest hurt.

“No. I should be home on time from now on.” Or at least until the next big science thing comes along, but Cecil can accept that for now. Just as long as said next big science thing doesn’t come around for a few months—maybe a year. Carlos has definitely reached his working late quota for the year already. Cecil isn’t sure he can tolerate any more nights of Carlos coming home after both he and Earl are already asleep and he’s pretty sure Earl feels the same way.

“Good.” Cecil is smiling now, though his arms are still crossed over his chest. “Now what about my kiss.”

Carlos holds back a laugh that ends up coming out as more of a snort and Earl giggles again. Not for nearly as long as he did before, but he giggles all the same, and Cecil sticks his tongue out at Earl for it.

Earl and Carlos share a look that Cecil can’t quite place, but that he also doesn’t focus for very long on. Why would he when in the next second Earl and Carlos are leaning down to press simultaneous kisses to each of the corners of Cecil’s mouth.

“Better?” Carlos asks, and Cecil responds with a nod and a bright smile.

“Much.”


End file.
